This is a beautiful game - I agree the pixel art is superb. I'm impressed with all the combos and the work that went into this - definitely super underrated. Great start to your NES hidden gems series! :D
@@ClassicGameSessions Pretty much any game released after the Super Nintendo in 1991 gets the "well the SNES was out so that's why no one played it" tag. Not sure if that's applicable here per se, but it is possible!
I like Kickmaster. I bought it at FuncoLand back in the '90s for about a buck. I feel like it got some traction a few years ago during the height of NES collecting popularity, but has faded a bit since. I've always liked Taito stuff from the late '80s-mid '90s. Kickmaster's kind of oddball power-up/level-up system and variety of moves is what really makes it stand out... it's almost like if the Flying Dragon/Flying Warriors series was done right.
I totally missed out on the Funcoland experience. In retrospect I feel like I would've gone nuts in there! And I'm impressed, the Flying series is a very good comparison. Such an ambitious attempt but I agree nowhere near the success of something like Kickmaster. I have a Flying Warriors video planned at some point...
@@BigOleWords Yeah, the Flying Dragon series is one of those that is just full of interesting ideas, but just doesn't quite come together just right. It's a shame that most folks will only know it for the later 1 on 1 fighters, because especially Flying Warriors and Ultimate Fighter have a ton of quirkiness that just fascinates me. I think it's a Culture Brain thing. They have a couple of series like that, that just put all kinds of intriguing concepts and mechanics into flawed games, like the Chinese World series. Kung Fu Heroes is pretty straight forward, but then Little Ninja Bros and Super Ninja Boy put co-op into some wild RPG/beat-em-up hybrids, and it's another one with way more entries than most people realize.
@@bananonymouslastname5693 Yeah Culture Brain is fascinating for exactly the reasons you mentioned: pushing certain boundaries but often failing to meet the basic requirements of fun. Little Ninja Bros is really interesting and I'll definitely get to it at some point with these co-op reviews.
Kick Master and Shatterhand were a couple of the best rentals I never owned late in the NES era. Kick Master had a unique design, look, and feel that wasn’t typical for the 8-bit era. It really targeted the ceiling for what the NES was capable of. Probably replayability was its weakness which is typical. The gameplay and mechanics are fun and memorable.
bow - "...the obscure, rare or simply unloved titles that no one played." me - "I played.." bow "No one." me - "but" bow - "Not even me, and -definitely- not you." me - "ok."
Always excellent content man. We really loved ninjas in the 80's n 90's. From TMNT,Gaiden,jean claude, chuck norris the list goes on. Thanks for the video cheers
Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (1987, C64, Amiga, etc.) had 16 different fighting moves on one button joystick. One of my favorite games till today, especially on 2 player versus.
@@BigOleWords Actually it's was more like 11-12 and some of them were defensive moves. Forgot that the "16 moves" included also just basic movements, like walking forward and back, jumping and crouching, but it's still a massive amount of moves for one button joystick.
Yes and I like to research everything like dev as well. Now Taito published it but remember the dev KID, they did Low G Man and the GI Joe games both. And another Game they're well known for is Recca. There was a young developer by the name of Shinobu Yagawa that worked on these games. He would later produce games such as Battle Geregga, Batrider, Bakraid, and Ibara as well as produce cult hits like Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets. Yagawa was talented early on but didn't break out until Recca which we all know that shooter. The best shumps on the NES that pushed that system to the limit.
Mendal Palace was developed by GameFreak and was their first title. You can even one the enemies in the remaing data of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire going unused. Mendal Palace or Quinty in Japan was the First game Satoshi Tajiri directed, Ken Sugimori did character art for and Junichi Masuda composed the music.
Very nice list I've searched hidden gems and personally have my own list. I've seen a few lists of Hidden Gems online but so far I like your list the best because it seems to me that the lists I've seen are hidden gems for people not too familiar with the NES whereas your list seems to be true hidden gems that as you said even those deep into the NES library might not be aware of. I'm not as deep in the NES library as I am in the SNES but I have gone pretty deep and haven't even heard of most of these games. Hats off to you!
It’s definitely a hidden gems for folks who already know all the good hidden gems. Although a few like Kickmaster and Zen are legit, they’re maybe just more rare than Guardian Legend.
two things i remember about this game : 1- the day i got it home, was back to my apartment complex with the game, bro was on the 7th floor window and i held the game high for him to see and he was ecstatic to see it. 2- on a sunday, dad took us to a friend of his in the village, all day there all we wanted was to go back home and play the darn game. really a gem of a game, much like GI JOE : ATLANTIS FACTOR, both by KID i guess. i wonder if u ever heard of SWORD MASTER, one of my most favorite nes gems that no one talks about....ever tried it ?
Awesome once again. I can't believe you revealed yet ANOTHER game I completely forgot about. I thought all these games were so cool and mysterious back in the day as I rented them at a 2 day rental place once in a while
Two things have always bothered me about this game. One is the 3 items that explode out of the enemies. I'm a collect everything type of player, and constantly missing items drives me bonkers. Second is the color of the main character's hair. Why is it blue and not orange like the cut scenes?? Why does it look like an executioners hood??? These are the questions that keep me up at night. 😄
I was also frustrated by that, but if you mastered the slide kick, you could get them all. I think he was wearing a hooded cloak? One of the coolest things about this game was how it mixed up fantasy, western, and martial arts tropes into one glorious mess.
Very much enjoyed this video - I'm so bored of seeing the usual HEY GUYS HERE'S ZELDA FOR THE 865th TIME videos. No fun there! I'm exactly the same, grab a bunch of weird seldom talked about games and have at it!
I tried this a while back and had a tough time getting into it which is odd because I loved Shatter Hand and I thought, this should be similar save for the kicking. I was wrong 😂 I like the enemies and level design. Maybe I give it another go after hearing you review it proper.
I had much more fun with this game back in the days than I have now with things like Baldur's Gate 3, really! After beating the final boss, you start over, with increased difficulty and I think I was able to do it twice; difficulty got wild.
@@BigOleWords LOL it's long gone, there was nowhere to post that kind of stuff online back then, it was just in notebooks that got lost along the way, sorry! I'm sure it wasn't very good =P
Last room in this game have awsome soundtrack. You can even play it in option menu in sound test. Sad that last boss is so lacking. She(he?) have only 1 attack and cqn be easly cheesed with earthquake magic if you store enough mp. Every time you finish this game, end text little change and difgiculty will ramp up. I wonder how many runs someone endure
I beat this game on my original nes and a crt my daughter bought a few years ago. I paid 20 bucks for the cart when i found it in a second hand store. Gotta be careful once you get the slide attack or youll slide right into all the death pits.
"Brother... These sword-wielding skeletons kicked my ass... you must travel the land kicking them back to avenge my death..." Nice. Oh, and the princess stuff... whatever. A game about kicking demons in the teeth while casting magic spells sounds Metal AF. And it looks gorgeous to boot. I'm in!
Nice review and all, but what is this "Ninja Gayden" game you are talking about all the time? I have never heard of it. Bu the game actually reminds me of a similar named game "Ninja Gaiden" you probably have heard of it, one of the first games with a full title in japanese to make it big in the USA.
I only played this in emulation and I wasn’t impressed. I loved the first GI Joe and I thought the second had great ideas, but the animation on these feel about the same, so it didn’t excite me.
I’m lucky to have this CIB
This game should be in the top 20 nes. There is a reason why this is a hundred dollar game.
It’s a solid one for sure. If it’d been released a couple years earlier it’d be more fondly remembered for sure.
@@BigOleWords For sure
I was a little surprised the video didn't have a single Boot To The Head reference.
Had to look that up!
This is a beautiful game - I agree the pixel art is superb. I'm impressed with all the combos and the work that went into this - definitely super underrated. Great start to your NES hidden gems series! :D
Yeah it’s pretty wild to think how much work went into this game only for it to be completely ignored on release.
@@BigOleWords That's incredible and unfortunate it didn't get more exposure/marketing/publisher backing or whatnot. Great of you to feature it now.
@@ClassicGameSessions Pretty much any game released after the Super Nintendo in 1991 gets the "well the SNES was out so that's why no one played it" tag. Not sure if that's applicable here per se, but it is possible!
@@BigOleWords Good point - that could very well have something to do with it!
I like Kickmaster. I bought it at FuncoLand back in the '90s for about a buck. I feel like it got some traction a few years ago during the height of NES collecting popularity, but has faded a bit since. I've always liked Taito stuff from the late '80s-mid '90s.
Kickmaster's kind of oddball power-up/level-up system and variety of moves is what really makes it stand out... it's almost like if the Flying Dragon/Flying Warriors series was done right.
I totally missed out on the Funcoland experience. In retrospect I feel like I would've gone nuts in there!
And I'm impressed, the Flying series is a very good comparison. Such an ambitious attempt but I agree nowhere near the success of something like Kickmaster. I have a Flying Warriors video planned at some point...
@@BigOleWords Yeah, the Flying Dragon series is one of those that is just full of interesting ideas, but just doesn't quite come together just right. It's a shame that most folks will only know it for the later 1 on 1 fighters, because especially Flying Warriors and Ultimate Fighter have a ton of quirkiness that just fascinates me.
I think it's a Culture Brain thing. They have a couple of series like that, that just put all kinds of intriguing concepts and mechanics into flawed games, like the Chinese World series. Kung Fu Heroes is pretty straight forward, but then Little Ninja Bros and Super Ninja Boy put co-op into some wild RPG/beat-em-up hybrids, and it's another one with way more entries than most people realize.
@@bananonymouslastname5693 Yeah Culture Brain is fascinating for exactly the reasons you mentioned: pushing certain boundaries but often failing to meet the basic requirements of fun. Little Ninja Bros is really interesting and I'll definitely get to it at some point with these co-op reviews.
@@BigOleWordsTrue, but I loved me some Flying Warriors.
Taito! Such classic nintendo.
Kick Master and Shatterhand were a couple of the best rentals I never owned late in the NES era.
Kick Master had a unique design, look, and feel that wasn’t typical for the 8-bit era. It really targeted the ceiling for what the NES was capable of.
Probably replayability was its weakness which is typical. The gameplay and mechanics are fun and memorable.
That jump sprite is straight out of GI Joe, one of my favourites.
Huh didn’t realize that, neat!
Love me some KickMaster! I had a good laugh at the end. The prices of NES games are climbing faster than the stock market!
Oof yeah I haven’t looked that up in a while. Honestly it’s one of the 5 beat games over $100 for whatever that’s worth :)
Awesome game - and THE MUSIC
Hell yes
bow - "...the obscure, rare or simply unloved titles that no one played."
me - "I played.."
bow "No one."
me - "but"
bow - "Not even me, and -definitely- not you."
me - "ok."
DEFINITELY NOT YOU!!!!
Always excellent content man. We really loved ninjas in the 80's n 90's. From TMNT,Gaiden,jean claude, chuck norris the list goes on. Thanks for the video cheers
Haha karate kid had us all obsessed!
Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (1987, C64, Amiga, etc.) had 16 different fighting moves on one button joystick. One of my favorite games till today, especially on 2 player versus.
16?! Wild.
@@BigOleWords Actually it's was more like 11-12 and some of them were defensive moves. Forgot that the "16 moves" included also just basic movements, like walking forward and back, jumping and crouching, but it's still a massive amount of moves for one button joystick.
This is generally my go-to answer as a NES hidden gem.
You are a man of taste I see!
I got this game back when it first came out not knowing anything about it. Definitely a good choice.
Man you chose wisely!
That Pixel Art is outstanding 👌 well worth the Hidden Gem moniker.
Yessir!
Yes and I like to research everything like dev as well. Now Taito published it but remember the dev KID, they did Low G Man and the GI Joe games both. And another Game they're well known for is Recca. There was a young developer by the name of Shinobu Yagawa that worked on these games. He would later produce games such as Battle Geregga, Batrider, Bakraid, and Ibara as well as produce cult hits like Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets. Yagawa was talented early on but didn't break out until Recca which we all know that shooter. The best shumps on the NES that pushed that system to the limit.
I have this on the NES Classic. I have really enjoyed trying to beat it. It hasn’t happened yet though! Great video as always.
It’s on the NES Classic?!? Man I seriously underestimated its popularity!
@@BigOleWords Well..........it’s on mine!.......not sure how that happened.😉
Oooooohhhhhh!
Mendal Palace was developed by GameFreak and was their first title. You can even one the enemies in the remaing data of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire going unused. Mendal Palace or Quinty in Japan was the First game Satoshi Tajiri directed, Ken Sugimori did character art for and Junichi Masuda composed the music.
Yeah I kept thinking that was a KID title because of NESGUIDE which had Mendel as one of there’s but you’re absolutely right :)
Very nice list
I've searched hidden gems and personally have my own list. I've seen a few lists of Hidden Gems online but so far I like your list the best because it seems to me that the lists I've seen are hidden gems for people not too familiar with the NES whereas your list seems to be true hidden gems that as you said even those deep into the NES library might not be aware of.
I'm not as deep in the NES library as I am in the SNES but I have gone pretty deep and haven't even heard of most of these games.
Hats off to you!
It’s definitely a hidden gems for folks who already know all the good hidden gems. Although a few like Kickmaster and Zen are legit, they’re maybe just more rare than Guardian Legend.
Not mention than you need beat tha game 3 TIMES!, to get the real message ending and every time the game is more harder, ¡Thanks Ken Lobb!.
Really? No way!
I own CIB and ITs the Old CONTEST WINNIG CART, PRIZE WAS NEVER CLAIMED AN NOW IM BRING IT TI LIGHT, ggz KICKMASTER👽👍
Haha awesome!
@@BigOleWords I wonder if it goes up in price, well here we go, ggz-👽👍
two things i remember about this game :
1- the day i got it home, was back to my apartment complex with the game, bro was on the 7th floor window and i held the game high for him to see and he was ecstatic to see it.
2- on a sunday, dad took us to a friend of his in the village, all day there all we wanted was to go back home and play the darn game.
really a gem of a game, much like GI JOE : ATLANTIS FACTOR, both by KID i guess.
i wonder if u ever heard of SWORD MASTER, one of my most favorite nes gems that no one talks about....ever tried it ?
That’s awesome, I would’ve been obsessed with Kickmaster as a kid. I’ll definitely get to Sword Master at some point :)
@@BigOleWords i sure hope so and thank u.
Awesome once again. I can't believe you revealed yet ANOTHER game I completely forgot about. I thought all these games were so cool and mysterious back in the day as I rented them at a 2 day rental place once in a while
Nice! Man I would’ve loved to rent this back in the day :)
What’s funny is the graphic effects and presentation actually resemble or remind me more of some of the more modern 8-bit games.
Yeah for sure!
I've been wanting this game for so long...one of these days I'll find it! Solid review!
It’s worth it, right on the border of really fun but almost too expensive to justify buying.
Two things have always bothered me about this game. One is the 3 items that explode out of the enemies. I'm a collect everything type of player, and constantly missing items drives me bonkers. Second is the color of the main character's hair. Why is it blue and not orange like the cut scenes?? Why does it look like an executioners hood??? These are the questions that keep me up at night. 😄
Yeah I feel ya on the collection thing, it’s easy for me to obsess over killing the enemies perfectly.
I was also frustrated by that, but if you mastered the slide kick, you could get them all.
I think he was wearing a hooded cloak? One of the coolest things about this game was how it mixed up fantasy, western, and martial arts tropes into one glorious mess.
One of the best looking game on NES.
Fun to play also
Yes to all of that!
Very much enjoyed this video - I'm so bored of seeing the usual HEY GUYS HERE'S ZELDA FOR THE 865th TIME videos. No fun there!
I'm exactly the same, grab a bunch of weird seldom talked about games and have at it!
Then you're going to love my next five videos which are a multi-part 22 hour playthrough of all the 8-bit Zeldas ;)
@@BigOleWords *unsubscribe 🤣
I tried this a while back and had a tough time getting into it which is odd because I loved Shatter Hand and I thought, this should be similar save for the kicking. I was wrong 😂 I like the enemies and level design. Maybe I give it another go after hearing you review it proper.
Once you start to upgrade abilities it gets pretty fun!
Awesome review! Man, those late release Taito games are pretty awesome. Alright, guess I’m a foot fetishist now….wait, what?
Don’t worry, we’ve got a support group going ;)
@@BigOleWords Good to know
This game kicks ass!
Yes it does!
Kick Master fucking rules. My cousin and I used to play it when we were little and thirty years later I still revisit it from time to time.
Yeah it does!
Kid also developed the shooter Recca, so they were talented with all the unique games they developed.
That’s for sure. Recca to Kickmaster to Isolated Warrior is quite a diverse group.
I had much more fun with this game back in the days than I have now with things like Baldur's Gate 3, really!
After beating the final boss, you start over, with increased difficulty and I think I was able to do it twice; difficulty got wild.
Oh damn, I never played it through a second time!
Another one I saw in Nintendo Power, but it was hard to find when it was first released...that might explain the higher price these days. Great game.
I loved this game so much I wrote fanfic, and fanfic wasn't even a thing yet.
No way?! Links please!
@@BigOleWords LOL it's long gone, there was nowhere to post that kind of stuff online back then, it was just in notebooks that got lost along the way, sorry! I'm sure it wasn't very good =P
Last room in this game have awsome soundtrack. You can even play it in option menu in sound test. Sad that last boss is so lacking. She(he?) have only 1 attack and cqn be easly cheesed with earthquake magic if you store enough mp. Every time you finish this game, end text little change and difgiculty will ramp up. I wonder how many runs someone endure
For a strange moment, I thought the game was Kickpuncher!
The final kickening!
I beat this game on my original nes and a crt my daughter bought a few years ago. I paid 20 bucks for the cart when i found it in a second hand store. Gotta be careful once you get the slide attack or youll slide right into all the death pits.
I have a multi cart that has kickmaster on it and it's awesome
Yea it is!
"Brother... These sword-wielding skeletons kicked my ass... you must travel the land kicking them back to avenge my death..." Nice. Oh, and the princess stuff... whatever.
A game about kicking demons in the teeth while casting magic spells sounds Metal AF.
And it looks gorgeous to boot. I'm in!
Metal as fuck is a very apt description of Kickmaster, this game shreds!
This game was slept on
Yes it was!
Nice review and all, but what is this "Ninja Gayden" game you are talking about all the time? I have never heard of it. Bu the game actually reminds me of a similar named game "Ninja Gaiden" you probably have heard of it, one of the first games with a full title in japanese to make it big in the USA.
A little touch of Commodore 64 in that there pixel art
Interesting, wouldn’t have though of that but maybe!
@@BigOleWords Yes indeed sir quite C64 Esque
Cool game!
Kickmaster rules!
I'd like to say this game KICKS ass....🙃
good game
I only played this in emulation and I wasn’t impressed. I loved the first GI Joe and I thought the second had great ideas, but the animation on these feel about the same, so it didn’t excite me.
I think i remember being kinda scared of the woman on the box art. Like enough not to want to play the game, lol.
I mean i can see it, but it’s nothing compared to the wolf lady boss in-game!
Ty
The game had to be 16-bit.
As close as it gets! There were lots of 12-but games at the end of the NES library.
@@BigOleWords Yeah. The music is awesome. I wish it was on the Arcade or Pc engine at least.
Played this and checked that shite out!
Nice!
Kick Master would be no match for Oily Shit All Over The Floor Master.